Eye of Judgment Review

And they said: let it be judged.

So once you boot up the game itself, you can enter the Battle Arena, view Card Profiles, use the Deck Builder, hop online, or play the Judgment mini-game. We were surprised that there weren't more mini-games to enjoy, and we were even more surprised that the Judgment mini-game was so terrible. It simply pits two cards against each other and tells you which one is better. There are really no special animations or mechanics involved. It would have been nice to see a more robust mini-game library that took advantage of the PlayStation Eye.

In the grand scheme of things, you can play Eye of Judgment with the computer, you can duel another person on the same board, or you can jump online. All the other modes are really just support systems and interfaces to make these matches happen. For example, the Deck Builder lets you do just that: build a deck and register it for online use. The Card Profiles section does have some great components, though. You can place any card on the mat and just take a look at the impressively detailed creatures on the screen. You can even pick up the card and tilt it in any direction - the creature will follow, as long as you keep the card's barcode-like markings in plain view of the Eye. Furthermore, putting the card underneath the Scope will bring up detailed information on the creature in question, and you can even pull up a world map to see the creature's origins. The attention to detail here is pretty fantastic.

Playing the computer can be fun, and it certainly will put up a fight if you want it to. Playing against other people is much more enjoyable though, and this is definitely a game for two people on one system, sharing a mat like a traditional card duel. The computer keeps track of every statistic, including each creature's wholly independent health and attack strength, as well as your mana reserves. Being able to relegate control of these dryer mechanics and focus on strategy, and the enjoyment of the game, is a big plus.

An intense duel, it seems.

But the real question is how good of a game Eye of Judgment is as a whole. This title has several strengths to note, including the fact that the card mechanics are solid and fun. While perhaps not as open and intensely customizable as a game like Magic: The Gathering, Eye of Judgment features a lot of strategy and micromanagement. And thankfully, the Eye just works. It scans every card quickly and effectively, making gameplay a pretty seamless experience. You can even opt to disable the lengthy battle animations for a much quicker, to-the-point style match.

Eye of Judgment also works hard to protect against cheating. When playing online, you must scan every card you want to use beforehand with the Eye, including multiple copies of the same card at once, so it registers all of them. Once your deck is registered, the computer will randomly draw your cards for you during online play, which means you can never secretly draw from your deck to tip the battle in your favor. The computer keeps track of every card in your deck and hand, ensuring that duels are played fairly.

The only flaw in this system we could find was that the game will mistake a high-quality, color copy of a card for the real deal, meaning a sneaky gamer could print off pictures of cards they don't have and duel online with those. While this is regrettable, it doesn't necessarily damage the gameplay, since they still have to follow the rules when actually engaged in a match - they just don't own the cards they're using.

Otherwise, the online system works great, and supports text and video chat. You can search for custom games or play ranked matches - whatever you prefer. When using two PS3s in the office, we didn't notice any lag or gameplay issues at all, which is reassuring. Ultimately though, there is a certain charm to having two players share a board, and we suspect that people will enjoy playing on one PlayStation 3 more than online, unless of course you're in an area with no card game geeks, such as ourselves.

While Eye of Judgment has many other details to enjoy, it also carries with it a few significant flaws. First and foremost is the complete lack of a story mode, which makes no sense whatsoever. For a game with a detailed back-story (provided in the manual) and a rather mind-blowing (though admittedly nerdy) opening cutscene, we were thoroughly astounded that the only way to play on your own was just to face off with the computer in single matches. This is the one aspect of the game that hurt our experience the most and we still don't understand why so much time and energy was put into an opening sequence when nothing would come of it.

And although playing online is fun and somewhat makes up for the lack of a campaign, having to look through your entire deck with every card draw can be frustrating. Not overly so, especially if you have all your cards spread out, but newcomers in particular might have trouble finding the card the computer has drawn from their deck.

The power is in your hands now.

Lastly, we must address the fact that Eye of Judgment does not necessarily need to utilize actual cards - everything could have been done virtually to create just about the same gameplay presentation. With that said, it's still a lot of fun to hold the card and actually interact with the game in an eccentric way, but keep in mind that Eye of Judgment is based around a gimmick of sorts, which may bother some people while pleasing a number of others.

The Verdict

As we've mentioned above, Eye of Judgment will appeal to a very, very select audience, but that audience will get a lot of enjoyment out of the title. I personally had a great time with it, although not everyone in the office had the same reaction. Take this into account before investing the money, but we can say with confidence that this is a fun card game that, if in the hands of card lovers, will be rather well received.